Report of the
Space Telescope Users Committee
November 1998
The Space Telescope
Users Committee (STUC) met in open session on 9-10 November
1998, in the Board Room of the Space Telescope Science Institute.
Committee members in attendence were: B. Balick, J. Bally,
J. Clarke, R. Fosbury, J. Frogel, L. Kay, P. McCarthy, F. Mirabel, S. Ortolani,
S. Terebey, R. Thompson, F. Walter (Chair), H. Weaver, and B. Woodgate.
R. Schulte-Ladbeck was absent.
Minutes of the meeting are reported elsewhere.
Readers should note that this report is based on information presented to
the STUC in November 1998, and may be superceded by
later developments. Readers are urged to refer to the
STScI web pages
for up-to-date information. Background material is available through the
minutes.
Executive Summary
This meeting of the STUC occurred at a relatively tranquil time. The
spacecraft is operating well, and the main concerns are with the future.
Operating costs for the HST are projected to decrease by about 30% by the
year 2010. The STScI
is beginning a serious examine of its operations, and this will have some
effect upon the users. The SM4 instrument WFC-3, which was envisioned to
be a backup camera, has attracted some attention. There are moves afoot
to add an IR channel, which will increase its scientific capabilities.
However, the source of funding for any additions to the baseline instrument
is yet to be identified. Closer to our time, NICMOS is about to run out of
cryogen, and the decision on whether or not to fly the NCS will be made
in the next few months.
New Director
The STUC welcomes the new director, Steve Beckwith. We
look forward to working with him in our capacity as representatives of the
users of the HST,
to maximize the scientific return of the HST while maintaining
acceptable levels of user support.
HST Scheduling
The STUC applauds the efforts of the STScI scheduling team, lead by Peggy
Stanley, to clear up the backlog of cycle 4 and 5 proposals
and to achieve the mandated level of NICMOS science.
They have succeeded in this demanding task while keeping the
observing efficiency of the HST high.
"Cheap-Ops"
The STUC applauds the direct approach the STScI is taking
with respect to "Cheap-Ops", and looks forward to working closely with
the Director's office to identify ways to decrease operating costs.
It is in everyone's interests to reduce costs in such a way as to minimize
direct impacts on the users of the HST.
The User Survey
The STUC applauds the User Support Assessment Group for its
User Survey, and thanks all users who responded.
As the available resources decrease, it is inevitable that some user
support will be affected, and the best way to determine those cuts which
will hurt the least is to ask the users. We further thank those users
who have volunteered to serve on the focus groups.
Community Parallels
The committee is pleased to see the high level of use of the community
parallel data, and urges that the program be continued.
Moving Target Issues
The STUC strongly
supports the STScI's plan to produce finder charts for Moving Target
observations in time to support Cycle 8 Solar System programs, if not
earlier.
The STUC encourages the STScI
to continue its investigation of the problem of the large pixel shifts
seen in adjacent STIS images, and to implement
corrective action if analysis identifies a feasible solution.
NICMOS Calibration
The shortened lifetime of NICMOS posed a significant challenge, to which the
Institute responded capably and successfully. STScI has achieved its goal of
maximizing science data taken with NICMOS and provided rapid preliminary
calibration and distribution of pipleline software CALNICA and CALNICB.
However the STUC has a serious concern with the slow progress made on
NICMOS calibration and characterization during the past year. The situation
remains essentially
unchanged from that of the September 1997 HST Calibration Workshop.
Results of the
recent User Survey show a high level of dissatisfaction with
NICMOS calibration.
NICMOS is the first near-infrared instrument for STScI, and represents an
important opportunity to develop in-house NIR expertise as well as to
demonstrate to the astronomical community that STScI will capably handle its
transition to NGST.
Given budget and staffing realities this may be the time to consider a more
flexible approach to NICMOS support. The pipeline paradigm does not easily
accomodate the interactive approach that NICMOS users have found necessary to
reduce their data.
To improve accessibility to a wider range of users and improve
the scientific
return of NICMOS data, enough information should be provided with the
standard data products so that capable
observers without NIR experience can diagnose problems and identify proven
solutions. To achieve this goal we encourage STScI to mine the knowledge and
existing software of the NICMOS Instrument Team as well as experienced NICMOS
users.
The WFC-3
STUC strongly supports the stretch concept of extending the wavelength
range of WFC-3 to 1.9 microns by the addition of a near-IR channel. This
concept would provide major and exciting new scientific opportunities for
the 2nd decade of HST observations. In addition, such a near-IR
capability would be a valuable link to and complement for observations
with NGST. It will also provide an important complement to SIRTF
observations. We recognize that the window of opportunity for initiating
this stretch concept is narrow and urge that engineering development
studies procede with all due haste. We look forward to working with STScI
and the HST project to develop innovative ways to begin funding this stretch
concept.
The inclusion of a near-IR channel on WFC-3 must not
compromise the baseline UV/optical camera, and must not delay the scheduled
launch of the SM4 mission.
The STUC has created a subcommittee, consisting of B. Balick, J. Frogel,
P. McCarthy, and S. Terebey, to investigate the scientific case for the
IR channel, and to examine ways of funding this option.
The subcommittee shall report its
findings and recommendations to STUC for further action.
The STUC strongly recommends that the HST project appoint a
prominent and influential scientist to be scientific advocate for the
IR channel on the WFC-3.
The Hubble Fellowship Program
The Hubble Fellowship is an extremely successful program, whose
success can be measured by the number of imitative fellowship programs that
now exist. However, the committee suggests that there
are too many Hubble Fellowships being awarded each year.
With 45 Hubble fellows at any one time, the fellowship is not as
prestigious as it once was. The STUC recommends that the STScI and the
HST project reduce the number of Hubble fellows to no more than 10 per year.
The STUC is extremely hesitant to recommend decreases in GO support, without
assurance that these funds will revert to the user community.
We recommend that all savings
made by reducing the number of Hubble Fellows be returned to the user community,
either by increasing the pools of funds available for GO use, or by earmarking
these funds to support development of the WFC-3 IR-stretch concept.
This report submitted by
Frederick M. Walter
on behalf of the Space Telescope Users Committee
December 1998
fwalter@astro.sunysb.edu
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